Richard Dawkins & Alan Lightman on Science & Religion

ladies and gentlemen and welcome to this very special event I'm Matthew d'Ancona I'm the editor in chief of drug store culture which just launched this week as a website www.engvid.com to use a cliche I'm afraid much overused by moderators need an introduction but I will briefly Richard Dawkins is simply one of the world's most famous scientists all through the God Delusion father of the word meme and a former professor of public understanding of science at Oxford and so much more Allan Lichtman an American physicist and a member of faculty at Harvard and MIT where he is now a professor of the practices of humanities and a unique in having held a dual faculty position in science and the humanities his most recent book which I'm sure he'll allude to is searching for the stars on an island in Maine and our debate tonight will be about the clash or otherwise between science and the mysteries of life the eternal verities and so on each of the speakers will speak for seven or so minutes will then be some questions from me and then we shall take questions from the floor winding up just after 8:00 so without any more ado I'd like to invite Alan to come and speak well I want to say first that I'm honored to be here and I think John Gordon for inviting me I thank you Matthew and Connor for moderating I think Professor Dawkins for joining me here tonight for many years my wife and I has spent our summers on an Iowan and Maine it's a small island only about 2012 hector's and sighs and they're there no boats or bridges or ferries to the islands so consequently each of the six families who live on the island have to have their own boat so my story concerns a particular night very late after midnight when I was coming back to the island and my boat it was a moonless night and the sky glittered with stars taking a chance I turned off the running lights of my boat and it got even darker and then I turned off the engine and I lay down in the boat and looked up at the sky and after a few minutes I felt that I had dissolved into that star littered sky I felt like I was falling into infinity I felt like I was becoming part of the stars my body disappeared the boat disappeared and the vast expanse of time from the long distant past long before I was born the long distant future long after I would be dead that vast expanse of time seemed compressed to a dot I felt like I was connected not only to the stars but to all of nature and the entire cosmos I felt I'm urging was something much bigger than myself and after a while I sat up and started the engine again well I would imagine that many of you have had similar experiences and I'll call it the transcendent experience the transcendent experience may or may not involve a feeling of being connected to God that may or may not involve the belief in God it's part of the profound current of feeling and response to the world that is streamed through the human condition for thousands of years and literature and music and painting and love you can see it in the cro-magnon paintings and let's go and lazy's a you can hear it in Beethoven's Eroica the transcendent experience cannot be understood quantitatively or logically certainly not in the manner in which a physicists can calculate how many seconds it will take a ball to hit the floor and drop from a height of two meters when I was lying in that boat in Maine looking up at the sky at night you could have hooked up every one of my hundred billion neurons to a vast computer and gotten the electrical readout on every single one of them and you still would not have remotely understood the feeling that I had religious experiences religious experiences of the kind described and William James great book varieties of religious experience or of a piece with the transcendent experience and I'm not talking about organized religion or religious institutions I'm talking about that personal immediate vital feeling of being acted as something larger than ourselves and the need to express that feeling in some way the transcendent experience can occur in science as well as in the arts and religion Einstein wrote that the most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious it is the fundamental emotion that lies at the cradle of true art and true science end quote Einstein was talking about the transcendent experience we're all familiar with the truths in science the inverse square law of gravity knowledge of the four molecules called nucleotides that make up DNA the length of time it takes a planet to revolve on its axis I would argue that there is a second body of truth represented by the transcendent experience and all of that second body of truth cannot be expressed in zeros and ones or even articulated with any precision we human beings recognize it and have recognized it for thousands of years no one can deny the validity of the feeling you have when you lie looking up at the stars at night or when you're transported by the raptures of Handel's Messiah the two truths represented by science and the transcendent experience are very different and the means of obtaining those truths are very different working as scientists we're constantly probing the world to understand what it's made of and what makes it tick and we test all of our beliefs in science against experiments with the external world all of the knowledge of science including Newton's law of gravity is considered provisional to be revised when we have new experiments by contrast beliefs arising from the transcendent experience come from the inner world of our feelings and emotions and their truth and validity rests on the experience itself and their universality comes from the long chain of human history rather than from controlled experiments or the position of the needle on a vote meter let me end with a few words about God and the belief in God over the course of human history there have been many different conceptions of God and we have to talk about what kind of conception we mean by God in order to discuss God there's some conceptions of God such as in the theology called deism in which God is an intelligent being who purposely created the universe and then let it go there are other conceptions of God such as in some of the traditions of Judaism Christianity and Islam in which God intervenes in the physical world in my view a God that intervenes in the physical world to perform miracles is incompatible with science but the most important point for me is that all the conceptions of God that I'm aware of or of a being that exists outside of the physical universe and therefore science which is restricted to the physical universe can neither prove nor disprove the existence of God likewise religion can neither prove nor disprove the existence of God professor Hawkins and I are both scientists and we both have tremendous respect for the methods and the discipline of science science has brought us antibiotics and smartphones and an understanding of the Big Bang beginning of the universe but science has a limited domain science does not describe all of the world and certainly not all of human experience the transcendent experiences of the arts religion and all the mysteries of human rapture work together with science to form the full kaleidoscope of human existence thank you [Applause] please forgive me if I croak it's because I had a stroke basal ganglion on the right makes me sound as if I'm tight so if I'm reduced so if I am reduced to squawking Alan I'll have to do the talking I don't think we're going to have an argument I have read dr. Lightman's book twice actually once when it was first sent to me by the publishers and then again in the last couple of days and dr. Lightman you can't out transcendent me of course I accept everything you said about the transcendent all except a bit about God I don't think you you think that either let me read a rather nice passage from Carl Sagan who again was very moved by the transcendent aspect of science he said how is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded this is better than we thought the universe is much bigger than our preacher than our prophet said grander more subtle more elegant instead they say no no no my God is a little God and I want him to stay that way a religion old or new that stressed the magnificence of the universe as revealed by modern science might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths sooner or later such a religion will emerge Einstein has been quoted and quite right too Einstein I think regrettably was rather fond of using the word God what Einstein actually thought was pretty much the same as dr. Lightman has been saying what he actually thought was that um well here's another quote from Einstein to sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is something that our mind cannot grasp and whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly and as a feeble reflection this is religiousness in this sense I am religious well in this sense I too am religious but I'm not religious in either of the senses that Alan Lightman mention either deism or theism let me clarify when I sign wasn't either another quote from Einstein he said it was of course a lie what you read about my religious convictions a lie which is being systematically repeated I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed expressed it clearly if something is in me which can be called religious than it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science and revealeth I think both dr. Lightman and I would agree with that we do not believe in a personal God well then he has way possible here's where we do a little bit part company to me that means there's no point in talking about God at all and it is actually actively misleading to do so and Einstein unfortunately actively misled people in this respect Einstein said things like but he does not play dice but God does not play dice meaning he was doubtful about Heisenberg's amid determinacy principle Einstein said this is not an exact quote something like this what I really want to know is did God have a choice in designing the universe and what he meant by that was is there only one way for a universe to be or are there different possible universes that could be conceived he chose to phrase that like the other point about the uncertainty principle by using the language of God it came naturally to him to do so but unfortunately that this leads people misleads people into thinking that Einstein believed in some kind of personal God of course I love the Handel's Messiah I love the B minor mass I love religious poetry all that died I grant really but there's a huge difference between the Einsteinian God which is a kind of metaphor for that which we don't yet understand that but is mysterious the transcendent II the feeling we get when we lie in a boat and look up at the stars and I to have done something very similar to that and have written about it actually there are huge difference between that and believing in well obviously the theistic God and dr. Lightman would agree that here the kind of God who forgives sins listens to prayers all that sort of thing clearly none of us here believes in that but Alan Lightman did seem to be hankering a little bit towards a deistic God and I really do want to part company with him there if indeed he does a dirac God is not so ridiculous as a theistic God but it comes pretty close in my opinion um having said there's a great deal that's mysterious about the universe the greater we don't understand great and we would love to understand we want to understand we're working on it having said all that to give that a name God is a pure semantic trick it doesn't help it doesn't get you anywhere the deistic God although he doesn't interfere with human affairs he doesn't listen to your prayers or forgive your sins the dears to God nevertheless is a supernatural intelligence who designed the laws of physics designed the fundamental constants of physics and then stood back and let nature take its course nevertheless he has to have been at the outset of the universe is a supernatural creative intelligence a super nerd creative intelligence has to be supremely complicated elaborate intelligent it has to be exactly the kind of thing that we are trying to explain trying to understand when we do science you are shooting yourself in the foot if you say that God even the DST God started it all I'm a Darwinian biologist and I come at this from a slightly different angle the Darwinian enterprise the problem which Darwin solved was the problem of explaining life before Darwin came along life was by far the favorite argument for the existence of some kind of divine creator William Paley himself author of natural theology said the physical world the world world of astronomy is not best suited to demonstrate the creator with the exception of Saturn's ring he said there's not very much complexity out there all the real complexity is in biology all the real complexity is in things like eyes and elbow joints which is why Paley devoted most of his book to biology it was a stupendous problem the very idea that you could explain the prodigious complexity of life brains and kidneys and hearts and blood vessels nervous systems plants chlorophyll photosynthesis hemoglobin the very idea that you could explain such prodigies of complexity with a hunt any kind of supernatural supervision or design was an amazingly bold and seemingly impossible idea no wonder no one thought of it before Darwin and Wallace came along no wonder they just didn't bother to even can contemplate the possibility that there could be an explanation for such marvels of complexity and apparent design well Darwin sold it Darwyn solve even that big problem of explaining life and we haven't got a similar Darwin we haven't got a similar explanation for the origin of the universe physicists like dr. Lightman are working on it and one day they may solve it one day maybe they won't but what I think is that the Darwinian success in solving the big problems should give us courage and say if that could be done if the human mind was capable in the shape of Darwin and Wallace capable of solving that big problem and showing that you don't need a designer you don't need a creator however wonderful the world may be however wonderful life maybe you don't need a creator that should inspire us to go on to the remaining admittedly quite big problem of explaining where the laws of physics come from and we've no doubt talked about that that later a universe with a intelligent creator in it an intelligent creator who started it all off would be a totally different kind of universe from a universe without one the existence or non-existence of a god is a scientific question a very interesting scientific question a profoundly interesting scientific question as I said I think that it's a very that the god hypothesis is a bad answer to the question of how the universe came into being because I said it shoots itself in the foot it doesn't explain anything because it simply pushes back a stage the problem of where the great complexity comes from it a divine creator would have to be supremely complex Allan Lichtman quotes I think a friend of his called dawn page in his book who says only don't have to worry about that maybe God supremely simple he cannot because supremely simple a simple thing cannot a simple entity cannot possibly have that have the now's the intelligence to design the laws of physics and set physical constants let her learn to give your sins etc he cannot possibly do that if you're going to say God is supremely simple then you're not talking about God at all in any meaningful sense of the word so let's be as transcendent as you like but don't let smuggle in some divine spook well well well thank you thank you to both gentlemen very much and I in spite of Richards many press my three remarks Bauman versus Olli than he he actually indicated I think unlike men if I'm right is then the idea as I understand it believes that there are limits that science can completely and totally contain and explain there are certain aspects of human experience truths about the universe which are not within Sciences grip where as Richard says watch this space you know we landed what life meant in Darwin and I imagine you know he might with more time of referred to the work of neuro scientists on on what religious experience actually is in a neuroscientific sense in other words some of the things that we now consider completely beyond the grip of science may quite soon be understood by scientists in the way that life was explained by Darwin is that a fair description of the difference between you two that's one difference between us i but I certainly do agree that that science is enabled to explain a huge range of phenomenon and more and more phenomenon but I don't think that the the question of the existence of God is a scientific question as professor Dawkins said I think if you believe that God lies outside of the physical universe then any arguments that you make based on the physical universe or inapplicable so I would I would say in terms of the phenomena within the physical universe and the the transcendent experience which takes place within the human mind I do believe that the human mind is all material I don't think there's any magical substance in the human mind and but I just think that the the methods of science are not the right tools for understanding what goes on within the complex behavior that those 100 billion neurons create the the the the sense of consciousness of eyeness of the full range of things that the mind feels of which the the transcendent experience is one I think that that those experiences are not really susceptible to scientific analysis and that doesn't I'm not that doesn't diminish the power of science at all it's just a you know you can't reduce Rembrandt's self-portrait when he was 53 years old to ones and zeroes you just can't reduce it it doesn't make any sense to even attempt that reduction so that's what I'm talking about Richard okay well of course I mean we don't disagree about that you cannot reduce the human mind appreciation of music love and things like that to ones and zeros any more than you can as a computer there's nothing mysterious about cook about computers there's nothing that goes on in computers other than ones and noughts shuttling back and forth but it's not convenient it's not helpful to talk about one of the nought so we're now trying to understand our computer plays chess or does a spreadsheet or does word processing the right level of explanation there is software and you forget about the ones and zeros you forget entirely about them you don't care whether you're dealing with a Mac or a PC or supercomputer whatever it is you deal at the level of the appropriate level which is higher up then ones and zeros so it's no surprise to anybody that science cannot actually explain deep emotions from music and poetry and love and things like that in terms of the detailed firing of neurons but we agree that there's nothing else going on so there is no dispute nothing else is there other than the material but the material is far too complicated to be explained in terms of the lowest level of analysis like ones and zeroes in computers or like nerve impulses in the brain but you don't think it's just an issue of semantics do you I mean your your point is that it's not just that we have a language that we use to describe that which the ones and zeros can't you are maintaining as I understand it there is and other there are there are there are aspects to the universe which whatever they are dare stick theistic whatever word you want to use all outside the purview of science that's correct yeah that they fall out the ability of science to analyze them that's very different by the way yes yes right yes I I agree and I think there's a lot more that yes that Richard and I agree on and then we disagree on but I think that that that these experiences but I'm just using the transcendent experience as a as a as a category for all of the experiences that I described that we all know about in art music literature that there is a that in all of those experiences or many of them we have a feeling of being connected to something larger than ourselves and I would argue that that the only do you cool that spirituality I would call that spirituality do you believe in spirituality I experienced exactly the same thing I look up at the the Milky Way I experienced exactly the same thing but do you think you're connecting with something other than stuff you can described in your scientific writings and readings I did well as I said before I can't describe it in detail but there is nothing else other than a material world and we agree about that of course I'm I have the same feeling of vanishing into the whole whatever it was I mean I get a minute do you because you you you say that there's nothing over the material world but you're saying yes there is there is only the material world but there's also these other experiences now that seems to me that you are saying note I share which I share yes but that but Alan I think is saying that the there are experiences which are a connection with something now what is that something that connection of something is the same thing that that Einstein meant when he was asked whether he was an atheist and he said I'm not an atheist the problem the question of God is too vast for our limited Minds we are in the position of children who have gone into a room of the vast library and we see books written and in many different languages and we don't understand who wrote the books but we feel that there is an order there uh and he actually used the word mysterious again a mysterious order that is the something whether it whatever it is very difficult to articulate and one of the the reasons we we have a slight disagreement as I feel that that that there were aspects of human experience that Einstein was referring to that are hard to articulate and it's not that they are immaterial but they are in a different category than the experiences that we can articulate they are not susceptible to the method of analysis of science and so that's why I say that they're there two truths and not just a single truth but the method that the two truths are very different as I said and the methods of discovering those truths are very very different they should i can't articulate the feeling on i can be moved to tears by Schubert quartet I can't articulate why I can't I can't articulate why because I'm not very articulate but but why drag God into it what's the point why not just say that we are intensely moved by the Milky Way by looking down a microscope by the incomprehensible 'ti of science and by quantum theory and by music and by and my art of course we're intentionally that's God calling on someone's mobile of course we're intensely moved by it but why drag God in that is I mean okay let let lets let's move slightly into the minor issue of the creation of the universe you know it's it's it's in the footnotes but you have to deal with it you maintain in your most recent books that the findings of quantum physics make it harder for I guess people like Larry Krauss to argue that the universe came from nothing can you elaborate on that well there there are two different schools of thought among physicists and the creation of the universe and and one is that the universe literally came from nothing and quantum physics shows how you can create particles out of nothing as long as this total energy is zero and then there's another school of thought was is that there has always been some space-time continuum and that new universes are constantly being born out of that space-time continuum and and physicists disagree about which of those to use is correct I think one of them has to be correct and we may never know do you but do you personally believe in some form of creative force behind the existence of the universe I personally do not but I feel this bus is going to get another way right but I think one of the differences between the professor Dawkins and me is on our attitudes to those people who do believe yeah I do have a face if you wrote that yeah we don't we don't disagree but you're just more polite than [Laughter] no but it's it's interesting because you're describing something fundamental because you it's not just courtesy that or lack thereof that makes you dispute people who claim there is a God you don't believe there is a God and you don't believe in the possibility for God as I understand it there well yes pretty pretty fair I mean I I knew nobody in this house can actually disprove a negative but but I would be hugely surprised and I think there it's one of those things where you have to wait for positive evidence it's like it's like fairies and pink unicorns and things like that I mean we can't disprove them but we have no reason to think that they are there so we live our lives on the assumption that they are not but I mean but but I leaving pink unicorns which obviously exists out of the equation for now I I take part of the disagreement to be that Allan does think that the transcendent may be as it were a rune that suggests that the question is more open than you think it is correct probably yes you're I mean you're what I mean is you when you hear Bart mess and be minor yes you don't think you know makes you think I mean I think it's immensely immensely beautiful and if I take take a take another work by bark this is in Matthew passion and intensity moved by that as well although the and the poetry of the of the death of Jesus gets to me as well as fiction and you can be moved by fixed yet you don't have to and so yes I I get all that I think possibly it's because I'm a biologist in a Darwinian biologist that I am more negative about the idea of a creator than maybe a physicist would be I think this is because as I tried to say in my opening remarks the triumph of Darwin was to show contrary to all expectation that you do not need something big and creative in order to make something big and beautiful and elegant and apparently designed I was been rather puzzled by why it took so long for Humanity to tumble to the truth that Darwin and Wallace did not until the middle of the 19th century two centuries after Newton did such clever things millennia after Archimedes and the the Greeks who proved who they examine Greeks who measure the size of the earth and amazingly clever things you would think that Darwinian evolution by natural selection by contrast to be on a level with an average crossword clue I mean not not something to take that should take humanity centuries after century to finally tumble to the truth and I think the reason is that it seems so utterly obvious that there there had to be a god they just must be a god to produce a bird's wing an eagle's eye the the prodigious mind-boggling complexity of a living body how could it not be designed and yet the triumph of Darwin was to show that it's not designed and that's why I feel that when physicists having accepted that say over probably needed need a designer for the universe as we feel well you've just shot yourself in the foot you've just you've just undermine the the great triumph of the humans that the scientific enterprise which was to explain life and now you're just smuggling God back in again because you haven't yet got the answer that's why I think I'm a more cost are to the idea of a designer and feel that it's very very unlikely Darwin first review about bloody time and secondly is there a was is there a possibility of a equivalent of Darwin coming along in the world well let me make a comment about what professor Dawkins just said about Darwin's work and I agree completely with everything that you've said and in your book titled The God Delusion I agree with all of your arguments showing many of the arguments for the existence of God such as life intelligent design ethics and morality can be explained by science and I thought that you did a great service by delineating those arguments but then why didn't you title your book the delusion of the intelligent design argument rather than the delusion got The God Delusion because you didn't really show that God was a delusion you just showed that the arguments the traditional arguments supporting the existence of God explained by science which I totally agree with but then what is left if you do believe in God I don't believe you do but if you do believe in God why well I think that yes I think that the the people who do believe in God that some of their experiences are described and I mentioned William James book the varieties of religious experience and I think that they express a feeling of being connected to something larger than themselves my main point here and I think but a feeling is an effect is it owned absolutely not no absolutely not but I think that the believers and and you call the people of faith I think that they should be treated with respect I think that their belief should be honored even if we disagree with them and I think you and I may disagree with with many of the arguments that that it's not that their beliefs are not necessarily based upon science or upon physical arguments they're they're based upon something else and I think that that that they they deserve our respect there are many many intelligent rational smart people who believe in the existence of God Isaac Newton believed in the existence of God of course I mean before Darwin everybody did so very well you couldn't vote for Nelson Mandela and lots of people believe in God I'm rather fond of quoting Johann Hari and some you may have heard me cuss him before he said I respect you too much to respect your ridiculous beliefs it's it's a I mean we've got to the way that Allen wants respect accorded to those who feel as he does and and beyond you socially want to withhold that respect when the consequences of that belief are absurd or harmful yes we haven't really got on to that but if that if they're harmful I think we both I think we really all right leave out harmful then what about just absurd well I'm I mean I'm an academic and I've spent my life teaching and when we have we have risk respectful arguments in the sense that we're having them on tonight and we we have a robust oral argument and and we argue against people it doesn't it doesn't mean that we have to be in the light it certainly doesn't mean we have to be rude heaven forbid and I didn't hope I never actually rude in the sense of what so much occurs on the internet now being outright rude to people like don't do that but I I do feel this is a very important issue the issue of whether there is a creative intelligence behind the universe is perhaps the most important question we have to answer it's a very important question I feel strongly about it I want to have a robust argument about about it and not just say oh well I respect your positions I'm going to retreat and say don't say their war great a good point of on poun which to throw the debate open to the floor there are roving mics I'm going to take questions in groups of three and I want questions please not comments and if comments start I shall be militaristic in cutting them off yes just there can we have the lights up a bit lights up a bit so we can see thank you right well first can you hear me okay first off thank you for a very interesting discussion I wanted to ask about your comment that you kind of corrected you said the Big Bang beginning of the universe and then later on you said up scientists are working on the idea that the Big Bang wasn't the beginning I've interviewed many of those scientists Stephen Hawking Roger Penrose Alan Guth our YouTube channel sorry self-promotion but they all seem to say actually we can't associate the Big Bang with the beginning any more of that viewers out of date most motor side to say we need a quantum theory of gravity and they seem to predict the universe didn't begin at the Big Bang so why use phrases like Big Bang beginning isn't it sauce somewhat misleading okay next one thank you very much but just to just a little bit further up the up up on the left gentle any glasses that's sort of I think just just there thank you I guess it's a question for Richard more if if science successfully answers all the questions to the universe and the discrepancies of certain physical laws etc really religion would would obviously be in trouble but wouldn't science be in trouble as well because answering questions is that the driver of science question for both how do you feel about Nick Bostrom's simulation hypothesis re Nick Bostrom's hype simulation hypothesis okay so to repeat briefly feedback there Big Bang good or not sorry journalistic headlines naturally we rarely look up at the stars will science suffer as much as a religion if we lose this sense of mystery and inquiry and then a question that's far too scientific for me to explain gentlemen what was the last that the highly scientific one about I could say like I got that one okay okay similar simulation so who's on the Big Bang yes yes good or bad Big Bang do we like it well in the and the scenario where there was a space-time continuum before the Big Bang and when I say the Big Bang I mean the creation of our universe if there are many universes out there you can say out there because space doesn't really have a definition you don't know how far there are much space there is between the different universes then thought each of those universe would have its own origin from some kind of quantum event and we've been pretty good at tracing universe back to a tiny fraction of a second we actually have information back from in the you know when our universe was only a tiny fraction of a second oh but the the question of whether there were other universes before our universe is one that is an open question and in fact I don't see any way that science will ever be able to decide that question because by definition different universes for out of contact with each other now on forever I don't know whether that's an answer to the question or not Richard if science Sun does eventually answer everything which a kind of scientific nirvana would that be a bad thing would but the question it was implying it might be a bath because there's nothing left to do and in a way that's true because of course science as he said does flourish on questions that haven't yet been answered it'd be very exciting on the other hand as well wouldn't it those be plenty of details to work out I don't I don't take a pessimistic view I'm actually almost equally excited by the thought that we will never ever be able to answer all questions on the one hand or we will finally get a theory of everything the third question Nick Bostrom has made the suggestion that we are living in a simulation it's been often noted I think I first came across as in a rather good science fiction novel by Daniel gallery called counterfeit world we might be living in a simulation simulation can be exceedingly vivid exceedingly lifelike we wouldn't know we wouldn't have any way of telling whether we were or not strictly speaking and his idea is that we are being simulated by humans of the future and so humans developed a certain extent that they became capable of creating a complete computer simulation of the world and we are in it and I would go far as to say so far as to say it's not totally impossible he goes so far as to say it's absolutely inevitable okay that's great three more questions please yes lady in front here I would like to know where both gentlemen stand in relation to concert fatigue of pure reason have we really reached the limits of pure bezel is it the case that pure reason is still the boundaries are still being pushed back further and further and we are still opening those which i think is Richard Dawkins do he I'm missing the key word the critique economy's challenge okay what is view that we have the limits we start at the simulation there are limits to where Pure Reason can eat and in which case is the literal jelly medium which would get us behind this fabric of reality where we can only reason in terms of space and time okay yes it just there just by yes yes would you agree that one reason why people believe in in all concepts of God is one of biological function and one of them one of the main differences between humans and animals is that humans have this ability to have hope which drives them forward to persevere and be so determinated and they use this idea of a God out there to drive that biological function of hope to survive okay good thank you how much should one more just just there just bit by bit just behind you yep I noticed in 2015 Richard you gave a Newsnight talk where you said that the burka was talking - yes sorry I could talk about it if you want burn directing have Richard and your news Lions for you said that the burka was offensive to you but that you didn't think that your opinion mattered in terms of whether it was banned or not and now that Denmark has banned it seem sort of relevant again to ask why is it that your opinion Matt your opinion on why religion maths or not stops at the burka why do you not believe in a burka banned based on the fact that you believe that religion and God is a false notion okay so to recap who can't do we like him it is God in our DNA and burgers do we like them over to you professor I'm not gonna deal with count and obviously yes I mean could believe in God I think the phrase used was drive forward I have a biological function of driving forward there are all sorts of possibilities for a biological function of belief in some something supernatural and I've suggested several myself I don't want to rehearse them again now but I all I would say is that if it's true that belief in God does have some kind of biological function maybe our DNA pre-programmed us to believe in God or something some predisposition to believe in God that of course has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on whether it's true that God exists it could be it could be demonstrate beyond all doubt it would be a very very good thing if everybody believed in God it might help society in all sorts of ways but that doesn't make it true it might help as biologically as well that doesn't make it true what I care about is whether it's true the burka question I think I've been gone on record as saying that I do not think the burka should be banned as it is in France it seems to me that people should be free to wear whatever they like and we shouldn't interfere with that I worry a bit about whether the women who wear the burka are wearing it of their own free will if they're sometimes say they are or whether they are being coerced by their men folk as I strongly suspect they are in many cases and that is a separate matter but I don't think that the law should step in and say thou shalt not wear a burqa boldly volunteered to deal with the pressing can't question so go well my understanding of Conte is one of the the categories of knowledge he had was was the opera gory synthetic where we're able to understand the world there's something hardwired in our and our minds is part of being able to think in the first place that allows us to come to certain conclusions about how the world works and actually Einstein worked in a manner that was similar to that and away with his theory of relativity and that he made certain postulates which didn't were not the results of experiments they were just conceptions out of his mind and then later on those conceptions were tested against experiment and he felt that the the truths that nature could no longer be discovered completely by experiment that we also had to start with with what he called the free thinking of the free invention of the mind but Einstein was the scientist and he would have ultimately given up his theory of relativity if if it had had disagreed with experiment and can I just come in there yes say you do want to talk about candy I want his time exactly to the point Allen has just just made when Eddington went to my favorite island it was immediately after the first world war to exploit the fact that there was a total eclipse of the Sun so that he could test the theory of that term that the light from distant stars was bent in in the wind wave we predicted Eddington found that Einstein's prediction was triumphantly verified in some of the asked Einstein what would you have said if adding if Eddington had not verified your prediction he said then I would have felt sorry for the dear Lord the theory is correct right we have time for a cheeky couple of extras uh come on ladies that's not big but he didn't really feel that way yes excellent excellent excellent hey Dad hello question to dr. Lightman you posit that there is something external to the physical reality that we seem to comprehend or connect to through that our transcendent feelings I would like you to perhaps elaborate how do you propose the interface between our physical reality and that external reality occurs whether we exist cross dimensionally or whether there is some kind of if the question is about about basically the interface because if that reality is external how is it that we have a way of experiencing it and and the question to professor Dawkins is we talked a lot about in this discussion science versus religion about hard sciences experimental sciences biology and physics chemistry but what about other more sort of conceptual sciences nevertheless the queen of Sciences mathematics and philosophy if it could be proven mathematically that the universe existence is impossible without the concept of some kind of supernatural God would that be would that be enough to to convince you perhaps you and so I meant I'm I noticed that you didn't mention Hinduism in your speech Allen and so I say this because you mentioned monotheistic religions not polytheistic was and in Hinduism there's and 33 million gods and there's also a mention of time being relative and gods going into the past future and present so I was just wondering what your thoughts were on that and also like there is also imaginable gods who kind of creates the illusion to human beings as well of time and religion and my second question is and this is there's a very key for questions yeah so I mean there's a law that states in physics that and its assumption that time and space exists throughout the whole time or and sorry I've got it written down here sorry yeah although all Lords um hold every time and place in the universe but that's unproven so wouldn't that make because that's a belief wouldn't that make science or religion itself okay I think I got the last of it here on the other it was about the space time continuum yes and whether it is become a religion in in and of itself correct and there you know no I got that no no that's I'm I'm down with that okay so first question is there a the the point about things that are external to physical reality what is the interface between them and then the possibility that more conceptual and Sciences might need two conclusions that are consistent with the supernatural Hinduism polyphasic theism do we like it and then and then and then something about the space-time continuum in religion we have a couple of minutes so it's going to be real fast and furious the previous question which was was one well and when one to me before was it says it wasn't there nope there was some it was one about the what the first one was about the the interface between us yeah that's it to start with that yeah interface first so um I have no idea whether there is is some kind of reality that is beyond physical reality I have no idea and furthermore I don't think that that science can ascertain that fact by definition if something is outside of the physical world then only if it enters the physical world can we can we interact with it so well and then there was a question about Hinduism which I think you do talk about in the book but actually wanted to say something about that well it welp you talk mainly about monotheism but the question was related to polytheism and and how that relates to your theory is does it does it I mean is it is there oh it's the argument different in the case of polytheism no I don't think it's any different as long as those those gods are not intervening in the physical world yeah if they do intervene there they are incompatible with this but science did the question about conceptual if that well firstly if there's reality beyond physical reality and we simply need to broaden conception of what physical reality means and do the job properly but there was a question about mathematics whether yes the whether the second sciences in mind somehow could they prove mathematically there had to be a God it's not I'm not quite sure what that would mean I mean Carl Sagan in his science fiction novel contact did actually raise that possibility is an interesting idea he had his heroine who was called Ellie calculate the constant PI out to the umpteenth decimal place not decimal cause she did it in binary and when she laid out beyond the umpteenth umpteenth umpteenth binary place of Pi it put it into a matrix it turned out to be a field of zeroes with a one bisecting the diameter so this was the hand of God the signature of God in the very fabric of mathematics Carl Sagan of course himself knew that was perfect nonsense but it was an it was an interesting way of putting it putting that at that point I can't conceive of what it would even look like to prove mathematically with without without premises that there had to be a God but I'm interested in the science-fiction possibility of which is Carl Sagan realized thank you I'm afraid the space-time continuum has caught up with this very very much because we could go on for a long time with these two amazing gentlemen I believe that you'll be signing books afterwards yes yes and I've just received a text to say that God will be that book exists by the way the please join me in thanking these two remarkable you

Channel: How To Academy Mindset

Views: 127,638

Keywords: Dawkins, Lightman, Alan Lightman, Richard Dawkins, Matthew d’Ancona, evolutionary biologist, science, religion, how to: academy, how to academy, driftwood pictures, imperial college london, Drugstore Cowboy, Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine, The Selfish Gene, The God Delusion, Einstein's Dreams

Id: eSCDfjTDVCk

Length: 66min 13sec (3973 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 25 2018